“Me first,” she said, and I laughed, feeling in that moment just how much I missed her.
“Taylor!” Warren opened the door and frowned at me, pushing up his glasses, which were constantly slipping down his nose. “We’re getting ready to play.”
I covered up the earpiece. “I’m on the phone,” I hissed at him. “Long-distance.” On the other end, I could hear Lucy giggle.
“New Jersey is not long-distance,” Warren scoffed. “In fact, it’s short-distance. Only one state away.”
“Leave me alone,” I said, trying to push him out of the door.
My brother just shook his head and looked at me with his I’m-so-mature expression. “We’re starting in five minutes, so if you’re not there, you forfeit your armies.” But he finally stepped out of the doorway, and I lifted up the phone again.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “Warren’s being Warren.”
“It’s okay,” Lucy said. “You guys are playing Risk? Like, all of you?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to notice the note of wistfulness in Lucy’s voice. “But anyway. I have news, you have news….”
“Right!” Lucy said, immediately excited again. “So I like a boy.”
“Me too!” I said, beyond thrilled that we had reached this at the same time. That was the only thing that had given me pause when I considered telling Lucy about Henry. I hadn’t wanted to move on to something this big without her. But if she liked a boy at the same time I did, everything would work out. Whenever we talked about the future, it was one of the assumptions we always made—that we would experience things at the same time. This included boyfriends, prom dates, and eventually, a double wedding.
“No way,” she said, laughing again. “Okay, I’ll go first. I totally like Henry Crosby.”
I opened my mouth to say something, and finding no words, closed it again. But Lucy didn’t seem to notice, and kept on going.
“Ever since I first saw him this summer—he got so cute last year—I had a crush on him. I wasn’t going to say anything, but since I got home I can’t stop thinking about him. And because you two are friends, I thought maybe you could see if he likes me. But, you know, in a subtle way.”
I opened my mouth again, even though I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. But I had to tell her—about the date, and the Outpost, and the hand-holding. “Listen, Luce…”
“Taylor?” I turned around, and my dad was standing in the doorway, Gelsey flung over his shoulder in what he always called “the sack of potatoes,” her head hanging down by his side, my dad holding on to her feet. I could hear Gelsey giggling hysterically, upside-down. “We’re about ready to get started, kid. Prepare yourself for swift and bloody devastation.”
“I’ll be right there,” I said. A minute earlier, I would have complained, cajoled, done anything to stay on the phone with Lucy. Now, I was thrilled to have an excuse to end the conversation.
“And one more thing,” my dad said, looking around exaggeratedly. He turned in a half circle from side to side, Gelsey swinging around as he did so. “Have you seen your sister? I can’t seem to find her anywhere.” This caused Gelsey to go into shrieks of laughter, and he flipped her around, tossed her up in the air, and caught her before putting her back on the ground, now laughing along with her as he headed inside.
“I should go,” I said to Lucy, grateful for a reason to get off the phone.
“So you’ll talk to him?” Lucy persisted. “You’ll see if he likes me?” I swallowed hard and tried to see if I was brave enough to just tell her now that I liked Henry. But I was afraid she would accuse me of something she’d been saying since we were little—that I was copying her. That I just liked whatever and whoever she liked, did whatever she did. And as I thought about my wispy bangs, I realized that she wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Right,” I said, regretting the word even as I was saying it but somehow not able to take it back. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Definitely. Miss you!”
Lucy hung up, and I walked slowly inside to join my family around the coffee table. Warren was quoting from something called The Art of War, and my dad was going over strategy with Gelsey (they were on a team) while I just stared into space. My mind was spinning with justifications for what I’d done—or, more accurately, hadn’t done. She’d caught me off guard. I didn’t even know what might happen with me and Henry. Lucy might not even be back until the summer was over. There was no point in causing trouble or making anyone feel bad.
“Ha!” Warren said triumphantly, and I looked down at the board to see that, right under my nose, he had just swept away most of the armies that I thought were safe.
chapter twenty
AS I WOBBLED DOWN OUR STREET ON MY MOM’S OLD BIKE, TRYING to do everything I could not to topple over, I realized that riding a bike was, in fact, something you could forget how to do. In my defense, it was a bike I wasn’t used to, and nothing like my old mountain bike that was now Gelsey’s. It was a beach cruiser, and heavy, with a sloping crossbar and no handbrakes. Though I’d stuck a flashlight into the bike’s white metal basket as kind of a DIY bike light, once I made it to the street, it became obvious it wasn’t going to be necessary. It was an incredibly clear night, and the moon that had been shining through our downstairs windows was lighting up the road.
I made slow, wavering process down the street, the bike threatening to fall over every few seconds until I got the pedals going and straightened out a little. But by the time I turned off Dockside, I was feeling better about my progress. The streets were empty, and I had them to myself as I swerved across both lanes and made figure eights. The wind was lifting my hair, and I could feel it stream behind me as I coasted down the small hills. I pedaled faster, picking up speed, until I realized where I was—at the top of Devil’s Dip.
I began to brake, even though I knew from long-ago experience that this was the moment to pedal fastest, gain the momentum I would need to get myself up the other side. But up at the top of it, looking down into the dip without the benefit of being in a car, I could understand why this had seemed so insurmountable when I was eight. Had I really once done it as a matter of course? And even more than that, had this really been a hill I had raced Henry up, both of us red-faced and puffing with exhaustion as we tried to beat each other to the opposite side? I braked a little harder, but the incline had already started pulling me down the hill. I could have just let myself enjoy the ride down, but instead, as the bike slipped out of my control, I felt myself braking, hard. My front wheel hit a patch of gravel, and before I knew what was happening—it only seemed to take a fraction of a second—the wheel was turning, and I was losing control. I felt the whole bike waver, off its axis, and then my foot was getting tangled in the wheel, and then I was on the ground, the bike resting on top of me, front wheel still uselessly spinning.
As I shoved the bike off me and pushed myself to my feet, I was especially grateful that it was very late—or early—and there had been nobody around to see me wipe out like that. I was more humiliated than hurt, but the palms of my hands and both of my knees had gotten scraped. I brushed off the dirt and gravel and pulled the bike up. I walked it the rest of the way down the Dip, then back up the other side. I was embarrassed, but mostly I was mad at myself, that I had chickened out on doing something that I’d conquered when I was still in elementary school. When I made it up to the other side, I got back on the bike, looking forward at the road, riding extra quickly toward the beach, as though this would make up for bailing out on the Dip. It wasn’t until I was nearly at the beach that I realized that I could have given it a second try, rather than walking my bike. I could have picked myself up and tried again. But I hadn’t. I had just left. I tried to push this thought away as I steered my bike toward the beach. But unlike so many other times, it didn’t go easily.
Since Lucy had just told me to come to “the beach,” I had no idea what to expect, or if I’d have trouble finding her. But this didn’t turn
out to be a problem, because when I got close to the beach, I saw her standing on the side of the road yelling into a cell phone.
“It is so over,” she said. “And you should know, Stephen, that you just lost the best thing you’re ever going to—” She stopped, and her expression changed from fury to disbelief as she listened. “Oh? Is that so? Then why don’t you have the guts to come out here and explain yourself?”
I slowed the bike, feeling very much like I was intruding, even though this confrontation was going down in the middle of the street. I noticed that the driveway of a nearby house was filled with cars, and I could hear, faintly, the thumping bass of music playing and random party sounds—yells and laughter.
“And I will have you know—” Lucy finally saw me, and she frowned as she lowered her phone and stared at the bike. “What is that?”
“What’s what?” I asked.
“Where’s your car?” she asked. She looked around, swaying slightly, as though it might be hiding behind me.
“I didn’t bring it,” I said.
Lucy stared at me. “Then how are you going to drive me?” Stephen must have weighed in then—I could hear his voice, loud and a little whiny, through her phone. “I’m done here, you asshole,” Lucy snapped, though I noticed she didn’t hang up, but appeared to be listening.
I felt incredibly stupid as I stood in the middle of the road, with my bike, at two thirty in the morning. And I could feel myself getting mad at Lucy for the first time in a long time. Ever since we’d met again, I’d been constantly aware of what I’d done, and why she was mad at me. But she had dragged me out of bed to give her a ride home when she would barely talk to me at work? And hadn’t even been able to specify that I should bring a car?
Even though Lucy was still on the phone, I felt the need to defend myself. “For the record,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over Lucy’s phone call, “you didn’t tell me you needed a ride—or ask me to give you one, by the way,” I said. “All you said was ‘come to the beach.’ So I biked here.”
“Well, I would have been more specific,” Lucy said, “but I’m in the middle of breaking up with this complete moron—” She yelled these last two words into the phone, and Stephen might have finally had enough, because a moment later, she lowered the phone. “He hung up on me,” she said, incredulous. “Can you believe it?”
Actually, I could, but thought this might not be the moment to tell her this. “Was he in there?” I asked, pointing at the party house.
“Yes,” Lucy said, huffy, as she picked up her purse from the ground, dropped her phone into it, and rummaged through it. She came up with a bag of Skittles, and ripped open the top, tossing a handful back like they were pills and not candy. She kept the bag in her hand as she closed her purse and slung it a little too vigorously over her shoulder. “I storm out of the house and he doesn’t even have the decency to follow me. Just stays where he is and calls. What a loser.” But as she said this last word, her bravado seemed to crumble a little, and she glanced down the driveway, biting her lip. “God,” she muttered, her voice shaky. “And I really liked him too. I thought we’d at least be together through June.” She looked at me, and my bike, and sighed. “I guess I’m walking. Thanks for coming, though, Taylor.” She gave me what I’m pretty sure was supposed to be a smile, then turned and headed up the road, weaving slightly.
I wheeled the bike around and caught up with her. As safe as Lake Phoenix was, I wasn’t about to let a tipsy Lucy wander home on her own. Not to mention the fact that she looked about ready to give up halfway there and take a nap next to a tree. “I’ll walk you home,” I said, as I got off the bike and walked alongside it.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, just as she stumbled over a rock on the side of the road, which sent her veering into my bike. She didn’t protest after that, and we fell into a rhythm, walking next to each other, the bike in between us. We continued on in silence, the only sounds coming from the cicadas around us and the gravel crunching under my tires.
“So,” I said after a second, glancing over at her, “do you want to talk about it?”
Lucy stopped at that and turned to me, and I stopped as well. “Talk,” she repeated. “To you.”
I could feel my face heating up, and shook my head and started wheeling my bike again to cover it. “Never mind,” I said. “Forget it.”
Lucy fell back into step with me, and as we walked on and the silence grew more uncomfortable. I found myself wishing that I had, in fact, brought my car. There were so many more things to distract you in cars. I wouldn’t have been feeling this awkward if I could have turned up the volume on the radio and pretended it wasn’t happening.
“Thanks for offering,” Lucy said finally, sounding half-genuine and half-sarcastic. “But it’s not like we’re friends anymore, Taylor.”
“I know,” I said. I looked down at the bike, concentrating on wheeling it in a perfectly straight line, trying to ignore the lump that was threatening to rise in my throat.
“And whose fault is that?” Lucy asked. Since I knew the answer to this, and suspected she did too, I didn’t say anything, just tightened my grip on the handlebars for a second before letting them go again. “You shouldn’t have just left like you did,” Lucy continued. “Without any explanations or anything. It was a really shitty thing to do.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I asked a little sharply, surprising myself. I glanced over at her and saw that she looked taken aback by this as well. “Do you think I don’t feel bad about it?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Lucy said, sounding annoyed. “It’s not like you’ve, you know, apologized or anything.”
She was right. I had tried, but halfheartedly. Just like I’d done with Henry, and then blamed my lack of courage on circumstances that had swept those potential moments away. I took a breath and stopped walking my bike. I’d been given, and ignored, too many opportunities to change. So I decided to take one, there in the middle of the road, with the moonlight streaming down over us and casting our shadows on the ground. “Lucy,” I said, looking her right in the eye, “I’m really, really sorry.”
She looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay,” she said, starting to walk again, weaving a little in the road as she concentrated on shaking another handful of Skittles into her palm.
“Okay?” I asked, half-running alongside the bike to catch up with her. “That’s it?”
“What did you want me to say?” she asked, yawning and covering her mouth with her hand. “I accept your apology.”
“Thank you,” I said, a little stunned it had been that easy. But I realized, as we walked on, that we weren’t going to revert to being friends again. She may have accepted my much-too-late apology, but it wasn’t like she’d forgiven me.
“I’m sorry too,” she added after a moment. I turned to her, confused, and she shrugged. “I’ve been a total bitch to you at work.”
“Not totally,” I said, but I could hear that I didn’t exactly sound convincing. Lucy looked over at me, we both burst out laughing, and for just a moment, it was like we were twelve again. I nodded at the bag of Skittles. “You don’t eat them by color anymore?”
She blinked at me, then, remembering, smiled. “Nope,” she said. “Not for years now.” She peered at me in the darkness. “Why, do you?”
“No,” I lied, trying to sound nonchalant. “I was just… asking.” Lucy arched an eyebrow at me but didn’t say anything. I looked away, as though concentrating on the road, and realized we’d reached the top of the Dip. You either lived on one side of the lake or the other, and the Dip was pretty much the dividing line. This had been the spot we’d always parted ways when we had ridden somewhere together, usually with our extra-long, very complicated hand-claps. But Lucy continued on, heading down the hill, away from her house. “Where are you going?” I called.
Lucy stopped and looked up at me. “Your house,” she said, as though we’d decided this in advance. ?
??I can’t go home like this. My mother would kill me.”
I wasn’t sure my mother’s reaction would be any less extreme if she discovered me sneaking in at three a.m. with an intoxicated Lucy, but at least I would be clearly sober. I began to walk my bike down the hill after her, then stopped, feeling my heart start to beat a little bit faster, my adrenaline pumping in anticipation of what I was about to do. “Meet you on the other side,” I called down to her as I slung one leg over the crossbar.
“What?” Lucy asked, turning to look at me. I pushed off, pedaling full-speed down the hill. I passed her quickly, and made myself pedal even as I could feel gravity pulling me down faster and faster, forcing myself ignore the instincts that told me this was dangerous, that I was going too fast, that I was going to get hurt. I just kept pedaling, and before I knew it, I had reached the bottom of the hill, and my momentum was beginning to carry me up the other side. But I knew it wouldn’t last, and I started pumping my legs harder than ever. Sure enough, the climb began to get very hard very quickly, and I could feel my calves burning with the effort to bring me—and my mother’s ridiculously heavy bike—up the hill. But I didn’t think about giving up this time. Not only did I have Lucy watching me, but I’d already given up on myself once tonight. I could feel my breath coming shallowly, but I forced myself, gasping, to the top of the other side. Once I’d made it, I stepped down off the pedals and let myself collapse over the handlebars, breathing hard.